Opinions please.

[rubywishes]

I've started quilting my Jacobs' Ladder quilt and I am starting to rethink my quilting pattern. Yeah, good one eh...wait till I've invested about 3 hours of quilting, thread and sanity and then have a change of heart. sigh.....

So, here's where I am at: I thought I would do a simple all over grid pattern, and to "go" with my blocks I thought it would look nice to do it diagonally and end up with nice little diamonds. Well, I'm halfway through doing my first lot of diagonals and now I'm thinking that rather than doing a grid, maybe it would look good to do matchstick instead? My diagonals are about 1.5" apart so I'm thinking I would go back and halve them to make 3/4" lines and maybe, just maybe, "go again" and do 1/4ish lines.

Now I remember when I did my Bargello (avatar pic) that I did diagonal quilting and it resulted in the quilt being quite out of square by the time I had finished. Would I be risking this again or does stabilising the quilt first with the 1.5" lines stop that from happening?

I have noticed some shifting/drag in the top fabric  in the completed columns...not sure why as I had in excess of 550 wretched pins holding this sucker together ......would matchsticking help reduce the appearance of this?

What do I do....diagonal grid or diagonal matchstick?
Sorry, can't put photo in as I'm using Mr.Rubys' computer...mine's misbehaving  but I'm sure everyone is acquainted with Jacobs Ladder quilts and I do think I have posted a pic of it a few weeks ago under a post asking about quilting ideas. Ooooo lookie what I did! Hands clapping

[supergran]

I love your quilt RW. Another one for the list. Sorry I can't help you with the quilting query though as I tend to use the minimum amount of quilting I can get away with. I'd never get a full size quilt through my machine anyway. Doesn't your new Janome machine have one of those magical feed thingy's? Won't that help to keep it squared?

[BrendaP]

I'm with supergran in doing only as much quilting as I have to!

Other than that my suggestions are:
Use a walking foot, or the equivalent built in system.
Use 505 spray as well as pins.
Quilt from the middle out so that any fabric shift goes in all directions.

[Lowena]

Can't help I'm afraid Rubes.... I do minimum quilting, and I do it by hand 

[Ploshkin]

I was wondering about stitching alternate lines from the opposite end but have a horrible feeling that it could end up a dog's dinner..
I like diagonal quilting but have only done chevrons (safe option) so the stretch problem doesn't occur.

[Iminei]

Diagonal grid defo ... minimal quilting to show off your beautiful piecing!

[rubywishes]

Thanks everyone for the advice...appreciated and will be ruminated on. Yes I do use a walking foot and no, I'm not using the new Janome; I promised myself I wouldn't play with the new machine till after i had this quilt finished using the Juki...which I might add is a great machine...it's just me and my methods that seem to be lacking at the moment!

I've just spent 3 hours skinning the sod as it looked so appalling.  I now have a week of work plus 2 days of babysitting grandchildren so it won't be until next weekend before I give it all another go. I am definately going to have to think of a better way of basting such a large sucker; I reckon that was my downfall though God knows how I can improve things as I thought I was being pretty thorough and careful this time.  Right now I'm off for a cup of tea and an Easter Egg I found in the back of the pantry. My fingers hurt, my ego is bruised and I have so many strands of white cotton all over my floor it looks as though there's been an intestinal worm convention happening in my carpet! Ha...now there's a visual for you all!!!!